Words to live for...

There are some things which are as important for your sustenance as water and air... there are somethings you live by, and die for. For me, words are that important. I can live through the worst of situations, the worst of nightmares, the most horrid things by just reading some words... yes I know its bizzarre... but thats what keeps me going .... so heres one piece that has given me life more than once...

IF:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!


--Rudyard Kipling

And continuing with the saga... something that helped me survive the most tremulous part of my life... again something i live by, and can die for...

I like odds,
they help me get even!
Success has no address, no landmark, no calling card.
But the path is steep,
& some will take the elevator.
But I will take the stairs.
Some will get there faster,
but I will get there stronger.
& a d v e r s i t y will be my t r a v e l l i n g c o m p a n i o n.
Because when I get there,
I can turn to adversity and say
so long
& heave the bag of taunts
& insults I gathered
along the way & scatter them
to the birds.
I will miss them.
But I will be lighter.
Yes,
that will be the day
when I will stand at a large bay window
& unclench my fist
for there will be no more odds to conquer,
not in the mind


- Anon

And the last one... a little bit frivoulous and rebellious when compared to the charm of the ones above... but wonderful nonetheless...

IMPOSSIBLE

is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than explore the power they have to change it

Impossible is not a fact.
It is an opinion.

Impossible is not a declaration.
It is a dare.

Impossible is temporary.

Impossible is potential.


IMPOSSIBLE
IS
NOTHING

- Adidas

Somewhere I Belong?

Sometimes, in ones life, a song casually playing in your earphones, suddenly makes so much sense, and is suddenly so relevant. Heres one from my morning subway journey to work...

Somewhere I Belong - Linkin Park

(When this began)
I had nothing to say
And I get lost in the nothingness inside of me
(I was confused)
And I let it all out to find
That I’m not the only person with these things in mind
(Inside of me)
But all the vacancy the words revealed
Is the only real thing that I’ve got left to feel
(Nothing to lose)
Just stuck/ hollow and alone
And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own

[Chorus]
I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real
I wanna let go of the pain I’ve held so long
(Erase all the pain till it’s gone)
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m close to something real
I wanna find something I’ve wanted all along
Somewhere I belong

And I’ve got nothing to say
I can’t believe I didn’t fall right down on my face
(I was confused)
Looking everywhere only to find
That it’s not the way I had imagined it all in my mind
(So what am I)
What do I have but negativity
’Cause I can’t justify the way, everyone is looking at me
(Nothing to lose)
Nothing to gain/ hollow and alone
And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own

[Repeat Chorus]

I will never know myself until I do this on my own
And I will never feel anything else, until my wounds are healed
I will never be anything till I break away from me
I will break away, I'll find myself today

[Repeat Chorus]

I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m somewhere I belong
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m somewhere I belong
Somewhere I belong

A brick in the wall

Sometimes things are very obscure, the color tends more towards grey, and there is an over hanging haze. Uncertainty rules over everything, and life seems to be like a car that has skidded out of control in spite of you being in the driving seat. Sometimes it feels like you're bobbing amidst a huge ocean… struggling to stay afloat and looking around for a piece of wood to grab on to… surrounded by the eternity of things that make you but a speck of dust in the galaxy. You’re just a part of things, a drop in the sea, a grain of sand in a desert…. And you wonder about yourself. You wonder about your identity. You wonder who you are… You wonder if you’re just a brick in the wall…

When you set out on a journey, you have a destination in mind. And the image of the destination, the pleasure and the satisfaction of reaching it is what spurs you on. And there are times when after a long journey, after a lot of toil, a lot of sweat, you finally reach your destination, and look around, and wonder… have I really arrived? Is this what I looked forward to throughout the journey? Is this what I yearned for? And then you wonder… about yourself, about the empty feeling inside you. You wonder if you’ve reached your destination, or just an intermediary stop… You wonder if there is a destination at all…

There are times when you set a goal and try to achieve it. There are times when it seems so out of reach. There are times when it seems just impossible. There are times when it feels not worth it. But you just strive on… and at a point achieve what you set your eyes on. But somehow after the initial exhilaration has died down, and you look around at what you got, you wonder if this is what you tried so hard for, so long for. And you wonder if after all this is what you want… you wonder if this is your target, your goal, you wonder that in life what is your final call…

Right now I feel all of this... and lots more. I have everything I ever wanted and I don’t know what it was that I ever wanted. They say I am a good listener and a good mentor too. So if anyone would have come and told me the same thing that I state above I would have laughed it off and said, chill, its just a phase. Maybe it is… maybe it isn’t. Whatever it is, it is tough. The only thing that’s certain is uncertainty and it stands mighty and tall.

I don’t know where I’ll be in another 2 months time, whether I’ll be in the same role, whether I’ll be in the same division, whether I’ll be in the same house, whether I’ll be in India at all. But I shall plough on. There was a time when some people, whom I had relied on, had counted on, had suddenly moved away. Life almost seemed to have been doing an orchestrated dance against me. And the trough just seemed to be getting deeper and deeper. Till I was actually looking forward to hitting the rock bottom so that I could come back to the crest sooner. But the time is past, and even through the haze I can make out the outline of the crest.

They say that in the journey of life u gain some, u lose some… some friends, some confidence, some valuable emotions. And it has never been truer for me. Even as I bend forward on the edge of the cliff thinking I have support, the support is drawn away from me, and I feel the void, the feeling of being suspended in free space. I realize that the support I had looked forward to was an illusion. Sometimes friendship very closely resembles an illusion, a hoax, and it is difficult to tell one from the other. Just when u start thinking that something is too good to be true, something is a hoax, it blossoms into a beautiful friendship and maybe love too, sometimes when u think you have discovered the truest of friendship, it turns out to be an illusion. In the past 3 years I have experienced both these feelings.

I struggle on. I have surprisingly formed new relations, new emotions, and new love. And it feels so good… like salvaging back a lost treasure. There were some people who were close to me… I have let them fade away. Maybe the verb is wrong, I have after all struggled to hold on, but sometimes a one sided effort is not enough.

Amidst the haze and the fog I grope, I trip and I stumble, but I go on. And I hope that my new relations, my new hopes will overshadow the things that I have lost, I hope they will be support enough for me to go on, even if I do not know my destination, even if I cannot see my next step. I hope that what I have gained is much more valuable than what I have lost. And I hope that wherever I am, in whatever role, as a Team Lead or a Client Manager, in India or Sweden, it will not matter. The haze will not matter. Because for myself and for a select few others, I will not be a brick in the wall.